Marilyn Monroe appears on the (December) cover of the magazine that made her famous, and vice versa. / Playboy

by Olivia Barker, USA TODAY

by Olivia Barker, USA TODAY

Few Hollywood institutions are as synonymous as Marilyn Monroe and Playboy.

Now, the magazine that launched an iconic career is celebrating the woman who arguably launched the iconic magazine, as Playboy's
December issue pays tribute to Monroe, on the 50th anniversary of her death, with a portfolio of pictures - nudes, of course.

The package starts with the shot that started it all - Monroe reclining on red velvet - and ends with her shucking her swimming suit on the set of the ill-fated Something's Got to Give.

"She was most in control when she was in the nude," Hugh Hefner writes. "What would be a position of vulnerability for others was a position of power for her."

"By exuding that sense of control, she gave us permission to be invulnerable too," says Roger Ebert. "We could admire her and not be made to feel complicit in something shameful or sinful. Nudity was natural and beautiful."